Tapestry
by Shadsie
Summary: It wasn't just the great deeds or the tales of legend that wove the story of a soul. It is the little stitches that a person leaves in others' hearts that truly make them. After the defeat of Grima, the Shepherds discover the little threads that may be enough to bring one of their losses back to them.


_**Disclaimer and Notes:**_ _Fire Emblem belongs to Nintendo, Intelligent Systems and all the people who created it. No profit is being sought – I'm just having fun with my game-setup._

I just finished my first game of Fire Emblem: Awakening, the game having been borrowed from a friend. I'll need to get my own if I'm going to take advantage of all of the replay goodness. This is the first FE game I've played and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I've never played Chess but I seem to like videogame versions… This story takes place post-game, with character stories and supports/marriages based upon my haphazard playthrough. Some support references where I did them and otherwise my imagination comes into play. Yes, I played Casual so I could get lots of characters/stories/supports. (With gaming, I'm more interested in story than in hardcore). Yes, I changed and upgraded classes on a few units. My "Robin" married Chrom and had all the associated family-drama.

* * *

 **TAPESTRY**

"More bitter than sweet," Gaius said as the war-team trudged back toward their camp. He was met with a few "Hmmms" and mutters of agreement. They sagged in their armor as they walked. Some were hurt, including their healer, who ironically had broken or used everything he could have used to help himself. Small spats of blood dripped on the ground where he stepped. Vaike, their chief ax-fighter, had an ax-wound in his shoulder, one that Brady had managed to patch up just enough to get him home. Their mission had been to keep their two captains alive until they'd gotten to their objective, the enemy commander….

… The human avatar of the Fell Dragon.

The mission had been a success, but any spirit of celebration was subdued. It was as though it hadn't yet sunk in that they'd just saved the universe and possibly others. In fact, Lucina seemed to be the saddest of all. She wrapped an arm around Morgan as they walked.

Even Henry seemed to be less chipper than usual, although he didn't have as much of a gray face as the others. Death enamored him and his beliefs about it were unusual. "I'm sure it's peaceful," he said to Yarne, much to the young Taguel's disturbance, "But… I'm really selfish! I want her back!"

"Extinction…" Yarne said dourly.

"My crows will find her when she returns!" the dark mage said. "They're really good at finding bodies, though… not living ones so much, but I'll ask them!"

The party halted when Brady stumbled. Chrom helped him onto Virion's mount. Panne offered to turn into Taguel form and carry him. Cordelia apologized. A Pegasus would be the quickest way back to camp, but she was sure Brady was past Blackie's weight-limit. As the group approached the Shepherds' camp, they heard a thunderous cheer. Everyone they'd left behind on standby was there as well as what looked like the entire Ylissesian army on the hills. Chrom winced. Had they been gone that long?

Fredrick, who'd been left in charge of camp, rode out. "M'lord," he said in his usual cool way, "We saw the Dragon fall. We saw the great light. Congratulations… M'lord?"

"There is something out of place," Miriel observed, taking a single glance over the returning group. "Indeed," Laurent said as he stood beside her.

"Damn!" Sully groused, biting her lip.

Ricken rode his black steed up and down the line. "Robin! Where's Robin?"

Chrom was about to answer, but Virion rode up beside him before he could get out the words. As Brady was lifted from his saddle to be taken care of, he twirled an arrow and raised it to the sky.

"Our Robin has done a thing of beauty!"

* * *

By the time Lord Chrom got back to Ylisstol, legends were already being written. He paid attention to none of them save one song that caught his ear titled "Sheep Without a Shepherd." The very first thing he did when he got back to the palace, eschewing even sorely-needed food, was to hold his daughter. Baby Lucina had grown so much since they'd been gone on this gods-damned war. She was already walking. The report from her nurse was that her first word had been "Kitty." - No "Pa-pa" or "Ma-Ma," just "Kitty." He had a feeling that the first word of is time-displaced daughter had been "Papa."

"You're going to know your Papa from now on," he promised as he held the child in his lap. Young Lucina responded by grabbing at his shiny shoulder-armor and burbling. The young Lord smiled as he introduced the diapered toddler to her other self and to her brother. Morgan had a fresh wrap around his forehead, binding a graze. Not even a good Thoron spell could stop an already loosed arrow.

"I get to be the big brother now!" Morgan chimed excitedly.

"You're going to have a future," Lucina said to the baby. "Write your own story and make it a good one."

"You act as though you plan to leave," Chrom said.

"This isn't really my world," Lucina answered. "I'm hoping I can go home to a better one."

"Stay a while," Chrom asked. "Please. At least until you know where you ought to be."

As Chrom watched Morgan play with his infant daughter he was struck through the heart with hope. Morgan might have been from some other timeline and, essentially, another universe, but someway, somehow, some version of him had to have had a son with Robin – and he was definitely Robin's. It wasn't just the idolizing and the aptitude with magic… his face was so much hers. This meant that if he was truly from a future timeline, one that had been set right, then, of course Robin was going to return!

She had to! They had to make their Morgan!

And then his heart sank when he remembered, again, the possibility that Morgan was from some entirely different fragment, or that by changing fate, they'd completely set the world on a new tangent, one in which it was possible that his other half was lost forever.

No… he chose to hope.

Eventually, Chrom had forced himself to eat something, a few slivers of ham from a wild boar on bread. Robin had loved wild pork. He went to the palace bath. It was a large bath, tiled and sunk into the floor and was almost more of a swimming pool than a bath tub. The water was heated and he sank down into it. There were a few more battle scars now. The bubbly one from a strong fire spell was especially annoying. Robin didn't mind it. She thought all of his scars gave him "character," though she was determined to keep his collection to a minimum.

The Exalt sighed and leaned his head back, remembering how badly they'd hit it off when they'd first met. Most of the baths on the road were cold and consisted of a simple tub, and that's when they could bring that along. Sometimes, they were down to sponge baths. Oh, how Maribelle hated that! It wasn't long after Robin had shown her skills and offered her services that Chrom made a tactical error. The camp was fresh and the tents looked the same, so in looking for where Robin was bunked to ask her an important question – he found her – stark naked in a chair hunched over a metal tub with water she was trying to keep heated with a fire spell and a cloth. He could not tell her that he thought her skin glowed then as pinpricks of sunset light streamed in through the tent's gaps, nor could he joke that he "liked what he saw." Maybe if he'd caught Cordelia…

Chrom allowed himself a soft laugh. He remembered those bruises. Even as a cool-headed tactician, his Robin was fire-hearted. This is why she and Sully got along great. Of course, she'd caught him starkers later and that really was unfair how she threw things at him when she had been the one to make a rare error. He'd never gotten his pants on so quickly, not even when trumpets warning of Risen were called.

Once she had joined his family, her attitudes toward bathing changed completely. She and he had shared this bath as often as possible. It meant that he saw all of her scars, too, including the dark brand upon her hand. At first, when she'd been found in that field that hot July morning, he was sure that it was some kind of Plegian slave-brand and had felt good for saving some poor amnesiac girl. As the war raged on, he began to realize more of what it symbolized, particularly when Validar revealed a past that she'd forgotten. Now… now….

Chrom hadn't let the palace staff or any of his soldiers see him shed tears. Not even the Shepherds had seen him cry. He'd kept his face stone and gray and he'd felt the need to keep their hopes up. Now that he was alone in the bath, he wept in earnest.

It was those little things that were binding, like stitches in a tapestry. Robin wasn't just his wife or his useful war-strategist, nor was she merely a budding legend. There were all kinds of little things that made up a soul, and all kinds of little things that bound them together. The people of Ylisse who did not know her would not know these things of Robin. What Chrom had of Robin were things like battle scars seen by no other, glints of mirth in always-sad eyes, rocks and rushes of blood to the head, fire-hearts and a series of awkward times with those horrible camp-baths.

* * *

The ensuing days were quiet around the palace. Morgan was not his smiling self and spent much of his time in the study that had been set up for his mother. He sat with his head on his arm on a desk when a gentle knock came to the door. Morgan ignored it. It came again.

"Morgan, are you still in there?" - Lucina's voice.

She entered anyway. "Morgan!"

He stirred, showing that he was alive.

"You weren't at breakfast again. Have you eaten anything at all today? You stay cooped up in here all the time now. It's not healthy."

"I'm studying," the boy mumbled.

"You need to take care of yourself. You're just like…."

The both looked at each other like deer caught in lights from a night-thrown thunder-spell. "There isn't a war on anymore," Lucina said. "There is no excuse to work yourself into exhaustion."

"It's not really work," Morgan answered, getting out of his chair. "I just like being here, you know? I feel Mother here. This room even smells like her… ink and magic and old paper."

Lucina took in a breath. "Roses…" Morgan was right. Their mother's favorite perfume lingered here, subtly. She noticed the book open on the desk that Morgan was taking a nap on. "Is that Mother's Big Book of War?"

"Yeah…" Morgan said with a smile, "Although she'd scold you if she heard you calling it that. "Take a look."

"Was she reading it or writing it?"

"Writing it. She put all kinds of maps in here, with the text. She might not have been good at drawing people and the like, but she was unparalleled in maps."

"Is there anything about all of us in there?"

Morgan shook his head. "It's not a journal. It's just a tactics book and it's… unfinished."

Lucina put a hand on her baby brother's shoulder. He looked down. "I don't remember much about my life, but Mother was the constant. I thought I'd lost her when I woke up in this time and then I had her back. I had her back, Luci and…and...!"

Lucina hugged Morgan. "She was brave," she said. She silently thanked the Robin of this world for taking a path divergent of the one chosen by her true birth-mother. "I think she might like you to keep the book… you know… until she returns."

"Until she returns," Morgan sniffed, taking up faith again that their bonds would bring her back.

Lucina led her brother out into the hall, intending to take him to the palace kitchen. She stood stark-still when she saw her younger self toddling down the hallway, chased by Lissa.

"That dress…" Lucina said to herself.

"Hmm?" Morgan asked.

"Gotcha!" Lissa said, grabbing up the child and giggling.

"The dress she's wearing… I wanted to get Mother something nice, so we went dress-shopping. She was unsatisfied with everything that caught my eye until I saw her eyeing….baby clothes… a lot. I bought a dress suitable for a young child for… well, myself…my other self, and gave that to her."

"She was happy with it?"

"She actually cried a little."

* * *

Donnell returned home to his village a hero. He was welcomed and celebrated by everyone there. His mother fainted when he introduced his dragon-wife to her. He'd married Nowi in a ceremony the Shepherds had given them, one that included interesting, and quirky draconic traditions. Donnell never figured out if she was serious or just playing with him when Nowi had asked him to hold a wet noodle while saying his vows. In any case, they were both happy on his farmstead. Donnell really wasn't much for warfare, he'd decided. He didn't like killing, even if he'd had to. He would take up his sword again if his village were ever threatened, but the reason he'd joined the Shepherds in the first place was to protect the "simple folk" and to protect this way of life.

He was happy right away, to put his armor out in the storage shed, to put his swords and axes up with the pitchforks and to take up the plough. Nowi, for her part, loved the open fields. He thought it strange to have a wife who acted like a child who was really thousands of years old. He supposed that if one lived that long, one might become a child again in heart. She'd even learned to help in her own small ways. Her dragon-form was great for herding cattle, sheep and unruly goats into their pens because they were terrified of her. In human form, she loved playing with little lambs and kid-goats.

Donnell took up his hunting and gathering hobby. One day he went fishing at the village creek and looked through his box of fishhooks. He picked out one and watched it glint in the sun for a long time. He contemplated the snell. Robin and he had designed this together – this was the very hook, the first one with that kind of a snell he'd forged. The barb had been her idea as a solution to creating a hook that would hold a thrashing fish.

As he chose a bait and caught one large fish after another – enough for himself, his mother, Nowi's dragonish appetite and even some to share with the neighbors, he thought of Robin. She was the one who forged him – ordered him to be trained with axes and swords, and put him through exercise drills to get him strong enough to wear armor. She'd needed another person with those skills and saw his potential. She'd taken him on missions around the flanks of the camp to take care of small packs of weak Risen until he'd built up his strength and had gotten a handle on using new weapons.

Still, his favorite memory of his commander and friend was making that fishhook and burning food they'd caught together since they had no idea what they were doing with cooking. Warfare and tactics were one thing. Those other things were simple and human.

In the end, she just had to go and out-hero the kid she'd groomed to a hero-class. Donnell knew that whether or not she returned as Naga had said she had a chance of - that she was still with him. He'd keep using those simple skills they'd created together. Robin had enabled him to protect his family. She was continuing to help him feed his family.

* * *

A young man stood alone on the edge of a cliff. He raised his hand, proffering a cube of bloody horsemeat to the large crow that came gliding in. The bird perched on his glove and picked the meat up, taking it into its gullet in a few short jerks. It gave the sorcerer a croaking caw.

"No news, huh?" Henry asked. He stroked the animal's folded wings and let it fly off. A few others of its kind rode the thermals provided by the canyon. The world was silent save the winds and the harsh "Caw-caw!" of his black feathered familiars. They'd found not flesh or blood or bone of someone he'd, despite himself, allowed himself to think of as a friend.

"It must feel nice there, in the dark," the white-haired boy said to the wind, "But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing!"

He did not know what a true end to one's existence really felt like. He assumed that it was darkness, a true oneness with the shadows. Henry also didn't act as if the subject of his ruminations was really gone. It seemed like one could not avoid existence when one had been known by others.

Her death hadn't even been fair! He had been there during the final assault. He'd watched, from his vantage point, as Grandmaster Tactician Robin faded away. There wasn't even any blood or exploding guts! If she'd been rent to blood and bone, it would have been a beautiful death!

She'd had her own fascination with the workings of bodies. Henry laughed, remembering how freaked out she got when he'd brought a Risen arm into the camp to play with it. He'd talked to her once about the bodies of the living. Robin had spoken of giving their enemies as painless a death as possible. It wasn't always possible. Sometimes, for instance, "if all else fails, use fire" came into play, via spells or conveyance on warships. Everyone could celebrate being alive and grieve for the sufferings they caused later when the nation was at stake. Perhaps, Henry mused, an afterlife wasn't best for people like Robin if they'd meet angry ghosts. It would have been just fine by Henry. He'd get to fight them again.

It was Robin who wasn't so afraid of him when he'd decided to join their "Caws." Perhaps it was the Pelgian robes she wore that left her unfazed by his expertise in dark magic. She'd said simply that he'd proven to be an asset. "A weapon is a weapon," she'd said of his tomes, "Staves, swords, lightning and dark spells – they all do the same thing, wound and kill." She'd also told him that there were no bad powers, only bad uses. Henry recalled that she tried to teach him what her group thought of as "good" and "bad." He'd found it all confusing. He was just happy when she's praised him for risking himself to keep a bunch of Risen from destroying a farming hamlet. Henry had only been following the rules that had been laid down for him, but when Robin had praised him, he realized that it was the first time he'd ever been praised in that way. His magic-teachers tended to praise their students by not-hurting them for a day.

He continued to consult the crows, even as he traveled with his wife to her dancing gigs. Robin needed to come back. She needed to see him get better with his magic and she needed to die a much better death – all pretty-pretty with blood.

* * *

Over the next two years, everyone who'd been in the Shepherds found their own small connections to their former Tactician.

When Kellam noticed palace staff passing him by, thinking he was just another empty armor on the wall, he remembered the time when she'd paused in the hall and asked him why he was standing around by himself. Things just didn't get past her. He'd liked that she'd known he'd existed.

When Fredrick had gone hunting in the forest and had skewered a large black bear with a hide that he thought would make a fine rug, he remembered the day they'd met Robin. Princess Lissa had turned up her nose at the meat he'd harvested for them then, but Robin just snarfed it down like it was the most delicious delicacy. He'd hunted game for the camp. Virion did sometimes, too – using his bow to get things like quail and pheasant, which were liked by Lissa and Maribelle, but gamey stags and bear meat, not so much. Except for Robin. Robin seemed to have an insatiable hunger for wild game, to the point that she'd mounted up a horse and come hunting with Fredrick a couple of times. She devised tactics for the hunting trips – future skills to use upon different animals.

Robin had refused to eat rabbit after she'd met Panne. That was something that Panne had remembered about her – although her sentiment was unwarranted. She'd watched Donnell bring in rabbits, unperturbed. Common rabbits were to Taguel just about a monkey was to a human or a lizard was to a dragon. The tactician had listened patiently and with rapt attention as she told her what could of her culture. Panne also remembered how she'd given an affectionate nickname to her and her future son. They were her "Killer Rabbits." Yarne had not liked the moniker much, but Panne embraced it. Panne kept her thoughts and herself far from Ylisstol. Her Gaius had taken up the life of a thief again and she, of course, rather enjoyed being the other half of a criminal couple.

Gaius, for his part, held a thought for his potential. One could change fate, yes – he'd seen it time and again, but he did not feel like he was suited to anything other than larceny. Without a cause to fight for, any attempt at a normal life just struck him as boring. If the Shepherds needed him again, perhaps he would fight by their side again. Robin had believed in him and made use of his skills for a greater good. She'd taught him that it was possible. The choice was his.

Maribelle remembered seeing Robin's eyes light up in a weird and disturbing way when she tried to pull her "secret to perfect tea" joke on her. Grizzly bear blood, indeed! The troubadour had to wonder if she'd really drink that stuff. She had to believe that she would as she poured a cup of fine oolong in offer to Lissa during their afternoon tea-time.

"Oh, I think she would!" Lissa laughed. "If for nothing else than just taking a dare!"

"Perhaps I shall try that recipe," Maribelle said with a wicked grin. "When she returns, of course… I'd like to see the look on her face."

"Well, I'm not trying it! Even if my Vaike wants me to get tough."

"I can't believe you married that lowborn meathead!"

"Oh, he's sweet when he's not cleaving Risen heads."

"So, how's life as Auntie Lissa lately?"

Lissa sighed. "It's been a little lonely since Lucina and Morgan left to parts unknown."

"Oh."

It was truth that some of the Shepherds had been giving up hope that their "heroic sacrifice on the altar of Grima" (as one of the songs grimly sang) would return. Lucina seemed to feel like this world wasn't hers, despite her being very welcomed in it. Morgan tended to tag along with her. He'd left his mother's tactics book in the royal study rather than taking it with him, wherever he went. He'd said that she'd be angry if it was gone when she returned.

"Isn't it Cordelia's birthday in a couple of days?" Lissa asked. "I got her a nice gift, but we haven't decorated or anything!"

"You know she's never going to get what she really wants," Maribelle said before taking a ladylike sip from her porcelain teacup. "Unless your brother is ready to move on. Also, isn't she married to Fredrick?"

"Did you just accuse Chrom of being a philanderer?" Lissa asked, indignant.

"Well…."

"He's still carrying the torch. Knowing him, he'll wait for Robin until the end of time and all our Maneke friends are old and gray!"

"Say… July 7th… Wasn't that also Robin's birthday?"

"Oh, yeah!" Lissa chimed. "It was! Although, we don't know if it's really her birthday. The thing with her memories being gone and everything. Chrom and I found her on July 7th and she just adopted that as her birthday so she could celebrate them. Do you remember how we used to throw a dual-party in camp for her and Cordelia?"

"It was such a pain! They weren't proper parties in those dirty camps! A Pegasus-knight and royalty deserve better!"

"Royalty?"

"Humph!" Maribelle groused. "She might not have been too ladylike, but Robin did marry Chrom and that makes her royalty! Not to mention… that other thing…"

"Let's not mention it. Let's just say that sometimes families by choice are better."

After tea, Lissa walked into one of the sewing rooms of the palace. She decided to watch the weavers for a little while, for they were being paid well to create a new tapestry for the throne room. It was a tapestry meant to depict, in symbols if not in accuracy, the fight of the Shepherds against Grima and it was to be huge – the size of an entire camp tent, since there was a place for it. The artists were the best in Ylisse and this was to be made of the best and most durable materials in order to be a piece for history.

Lissa thought it already very beautiful. Several of her friends were already depicted on the lower part of it, standing ready with weapons. Lucina and Morgan were in one corner. Panne in humanoid form and Yarne in beast-form in another. Several artists were working on Chrom, who had his back to the viewer and Falchion out. A figure in a heavy coat raised her hand, although her face had not been completed.

Chrom came in and greeted Lissa. He inspected the work, fastidious about how the central figure was to be portrayed. He had in his hands more sketches – ones that had been done by the more artistically inclined Shepherds.

"I think it's turning out pretty nice," Lissa said, looking up to her brother.

"Indeed, it is."

"I think it's kind of funny…" Lissa began, "with every bit of weaving, ever stitch, the story is coming together. And Robin… You know, I think she did that to our hearts."

Chrom was taken aback. He then sighed and smiled. "Yeah… she did."

* * *

It was a hot July morning, July the 7th to be precise, when a gang of bandits was waylaying people outside of the capital. A small portion of the Shepherds had gone out to take care of the problem. Chrom led them. They sighted a heap lying in a field and they rushed over when they saw said heap move and breathe.

The woman took a moment to register that she was alive. It was a nice feeling – like being kicked by a mule. Alive… skin… tingling toes… A heavy coat and it was hot! No charred dragon-stink or night-magic. Everyone…. Were they alright? Chrom? Chrom…

The strangest things were running through Robin's head. "Robin." Yes, her name was Robin. The strangest sensations and images came up in flashes. Fishhooks and bears, crows and the smell of charred flesh and blood, tea and Taguels, giant suits of armor that didn't get noticed, mages getting angry at other mages for leaving arrows askew in unused quivers, men who praised beauty and hard-bitten women who cursed with the hairiest of men… all of this and awkward meetings and grabbing frantically for towels and things to throw.

A line ran through her mind. "Love redeems and it never dies."

Her eyes cracked open. A face she knew smiled at her and made a joke about sleeping on the ground. The gallant man offered to help her up and she gave him her hand.

It was gone! The mark that had cursed her, that had sealed her fate was no longer there!

"Love redeems" echoed through her spirit again.

Why did she have the feeling that no time had passed but that she'd been gone for a long time?

"It's over now."

Robin rose up and grabbed Chrom in a hug. For a long time they held each other, enjoying each other's warmth and presence even as the sun was beating down.

Chrom rubbed her back and tried to hide his tears in the shoulder of her coat.

"It's over now."

* * *

 **END.**

 **Shadsie, 2015**

 _My first Fire Emblem fic, hopefully, it was halfway decent. Certainly not a first fanfic for me, though. I have over 100 stories on my account for many and varied fandoms, including various Nintendo games. (I've been known for some time as "that Zelda writer" and people seem to like my Kid Icarus fics). So, yeah, I found just another outlet for my geek-writing twitch. I also don't consider the Avatar to be myself, really, (I can cook and draw!) This means she makes a good "base character," much like Link of The Legend of Zelda. That is how I approached the game and this story._

 _I may not be able to respond to reviews right away. Money problems are worse than fighting Risen and I'm preparing to lose my Internet for a while. So, if you leave a review asking me something, don't be put out if it's not answered. Thank you._


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